How many people attend the American Film Market?

In a few days, the 36th annual American Film Market (AFM) opens for business, which will be followed by eight days of furious buying and selling film rights, workshops, screenings and industry gossiping networking. The AFM is one of the three biggest dates in the annual calendar of film business professionals, alongside the Cannes Marche (hosted in France in May) and the European Film Market (hosted in Berlin in February).

I took a look at the numbers behind the AFM. In summary…

In 2014, 7,946 people attended the American Film Market

The year with the AFM’s highest attendance was 2007, with 8,343 people

In 2014, the AFM accredited 1,670 official buyers

‘Accredited buyers’ must have bought at least three feature films (or TV shows) from IFTA members in the past three years

In the past ten years, the number of buyers from Japan has fallen by 44%

The number of buyers from China has risen by 354% since 2005

How many attendees are at the American Film Market?

Although it’s primarily a trade show for the film industry, anyone is welcome to buy a ticket. Prices range from $250 for a single day right up to $1,395 for a Platinum Badge which gets you onto the sales floor, to screenings, conferences, cocktails parties, networking and more.

Attendance has risen each year over the past three years, although the 2014 figure of 7,946 was slightly shy of the AFM’s record attendance in 2007 of 8,343.

Who’s buying at the American Film Market?

The AFM is run by a trade body, the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA), who represent 145 companies, including production companies, distributors, sales agents, television companies and financial institutions engaged in film finance. Its principal aim is to provide an environment for companies to distribute film rights, meaning that the most important group of people are the buyers.

Being an official buyer at the AFM is akin to being the birthday girl at a lavish party or being Robert Downey Jr anywhere – i.e. everyone wants to chat to you and treats you like you’re kinda a big deal. Consequently, IFTA are quite strict about who they grant buyer badges to, restricting them to companies who have bought at least three feature films (or TV shows) from an IFTA member in the past three years. If you’re approved, then a Buyer’s badge will set you back $495 ($695 if you want to attend the conference as well).

The number of buyers at the AFM is a useful clue in determining the overall health of the film economy. As you can see below, 2009 was a bad year, with numbers down at the AFM, at the Cannes Marche and many other film trade events. This was due to an over-supply of films in the early 2000’s which drove down prices and undercut sellers available to pre-sell films in the manner the industry had been used to. (If you want to hear more about this, then here’s a good article on SSN about what happened).

However, numbers have bounced back and in 2014 the AFM had the highest number to date, 1,670 accredited buyers from 794 companies. That means that 21% of AFM attendees are accredited buyers.

Nationality of American Film Market buyers

In 2008, 24% of accredited buyers at the AFM were from Asia but by 2014 that had grown to 31%.

Over the past decade, the AFM has had accredited buyers from 80 different countries in total. Unsurprisingly, the country sending the largest number of buyers to attend the American Film Market is America, with 331 accredited buyers attending in 2014 (20% of all buyers).

The country sending the second largest contingent in 2014 was Japan, although their numbers have shrunk considerably in the past decade, falling by 44%. The charts below show the change in the number of accredited buyers at the AFM between 2005 and 2014, for the 20 countries with the highest AFM attendance rates.

The table below gives you the fine detail on the number of officially accredited buyers at the American Film Market over the past 10 years.

Country

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

USA

331

349

327

283

278

273

266

316

287

277

Japan

128

131

152

128

115

119

168

230

220

227

Korea

155

154

138

116

101

109

79

67

64

68

Germany

102

102

110

109

79

77

88

82

87

83

France

69

74

70

83

79

80

99

93

83

91

United Kingdom

69

60

61

73

63

63

64

68

62

61

Italy

45

40

36

47

53

43

47

57

55

45

Australia

42

42

44

50

47

45

41

42

46

41

Spain

40

41

32

29

33

40

40

42

43

41

Russia

40

45

48

47

42

32

32

28

20

23

Canada

33

43

41

23

26

31

41

42

37

39

Brazil

40

20

32

28

26

32

32

52

44

47

Turkey

36

33

39

37

33

28

39

45

36

25

Netherlands

28

23

24

25

27

33

37

36

32

39

Hong Kong

40

35

32

29

27

35

27

19

21

15

China

59

42

40

37

23

14

17

13

13

13

Mexico

26

28

26

19

23

25

31

31

36

23

Argentina

20

17

18

17

18

24

23

21

23

20

Belgium

16

20

16

14

17

15

21

21

23

31

Singapore

20

21

21

20

25

19

15

12

11

19

Thailand

21

16

17

19

18

15

17

15

13

28

Poland

10

11

13

15

14

15

22

24

16

20

Taiwan

33

25

19

12

10

10

8

7

15

20

Switzerland

15

15

20

15

17

15

17

12

16

14

Denmark

16

14

14

19

13

11

11

10

16

22

Greece

10

8

9

13

14

18

19

17

16

16

United Arab Emirates

17

18

16

20

12

12

13

10

6

9

South Africa

11

9

11

10

12

11

10

14

23

19

Czech Republic

13

11

11

11

14

13

13

15

11

14

Sweden

6

6

10

10

14

6

10

17

25

21

Lebanon

14

11

10

11

10

12

14

8

10

9

India

12

9

9

15

12

6

10

14

9

10

Israel

9

9

10

8

9

9

10

12

12

14

Portugal

3

7

5

9

10

10

15

11

12

16

Indonesia

8

7

13

6

7

9

11

14

10

9

Iceland

9

7

9

10

9

9

6

7

8

8

Colombia

11

7

9

8

8

9

9

5

6

8

Malaysia

10

9

10

8

4

6

7

7

11

5

Ukraine

6

9

9

5

6

6

8

9

9

5

Croatia

4

7

6

7

4

7

8

11

8

7

Hungary

7

8

7

5

3

2

10

8

5

9

Philippines

10

11

6

3

1

4

4

6

6

11

Romania

2

7

6

3

3

10

8

7

8

7

Norway

1

2

2

2

4

8

7

9

10

9

Bulgaria

5

5

3

3

5

3

4

2

8

5

New Zealand

8

6

3

4

6

6

3

1

2

3

Luxembourg

4

4

4

5

3

4

4

4

4

4

Vietnam

11

6

5

5

5

4

1

1

0

0

Slovenia

1

4

5

5

4

3

3

2

4

6

Uruguay

4

4

5

3

3

2

4

3

4

3

Peru

3

3

4

5

5

3

3

3

3

2

Chile

4

4

3

3

2

2

3

2

3

5

Monaco

1

3

5

3

3

3

5

4

2

1

Slovakia

2

2

2

2

2

2

5

4

5

3

Serbia

3

1

2

3

5

4

4

1

0

2

Venezuela

4

2

2

2

2

2

3

2

2

2

Austria

4

0

2

2

1

1

2

2

3

3

Lithuania

2

4

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

0

Mongolia

3

4

3

8

0

0

0

0

0

0

Kuwait

1

1

0

2

0

4

3

2

2

3

Trinidad & Tobago

4

2

2

1

2

1

1

1

1

1

Finland

1

0

1

3

1

2

1

2

2

1

Ecuador

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

Nigeria

0

1

1

1

1

0

0

0

0

0

Sri Lanka

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

1

1

1

Estonia

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Myanmar

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Kenya

0

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Kazakhstan

0

0

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Pakistan

0

0

1

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

Egypt

0

0

0

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

Puerto Rico

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

1

0

0

Cambodia

0

0

0

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

Costa Rica

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Iran

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Iraq

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Afghanistan

0

0

1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Bangladesh

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

0

Cyprus

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

West Indies

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

Epilogue

I’m very grateful to the AFM for providing me with the data on official buyers. Other data came from the AFM site, press releases and film trade publications.

The country assigned to each buyer is linked to where they live, not where they operate. While most buy for that country, some buy for other countries too. For example, some US-based buyers represent a US satellite office of a non-US company or they are a middle-man buying for countries that have few buyers at AFM.

I have refrained from using these numbers to make any bold claims about the health of the film industry in one particular country from one year to the next. Many things can cause a country’s attendance numbers to fluctuate slightly each year, and the raw number of people a country sends does not necessarily tell how their film economy is faring (it doesn’t take into account seniority of attendees, films bought, money spent, etc).